Frequent flyer mile advice for those just getting into the game

Category: Awards

One of the downsides with award travel is that, frankly, it’s a pain to hunt down which flights are available for which dates. For infrequent flyers, though, that’s not really an issue, since you are not booking more than once or twice per year. But if you travel frequently, particularly on award travel, it may …

Supply And Demand Delta has launched a mileage sale for a number of routes this summer, with many of the prices depending on the length of the flight. The 1,700 mile flight from Cincinnati to Las Vegas, for instance, can be had for 11,000 miles in the main cabin, while the short hop from Chicago …

Alaska Air Alaska Air recently made a change to its mileage program that will affect only a few of you but, for those who are impacted, it’s gonna hurt. The airline, whose Mileage Plan program is one of my favorites due to its versatility, but that versatility is now going to come with an increased …

Marriott Every company is getting into the social media game and Marriott is no exception. It’s offering you a bonus to link your various accounts to them and will provide future bonuses based on, well, I’m not quite sure. It hints at sending you emails and offers which will get you bonus points if you …

Reader Question: Can I apply for the British Airways credit card, transfer the points to Alaska and use those points to fly Emirates? Thanks for the question. The short answer is no, since it is very difficult to transfer points directly between airlines. But there are other options out there. There are a number of …

Club Carlson Bonuses Club Carlson, owner of the Radisson (and other) brand, is the little program that could. Despite having a small network of hotels, the deals are generally good and, when they offer a bonus, it tends to be on the high end. This week, they’re doing a bunch of deals, each good for …

I spend a lot of time talking about what loyalty programs are up to now, but there’s a long-term question that’s worth asking: five years from now, will any of it matter? Hey, when the frequent flyer program (as we know it today) was invented, a free ticket was 20,000 miles and didn’t have any …

Reader Question: How can I earn miles if I don’t want to/can’t get a credit card? While opening a credit card may be the single fastest way to accumulate a lot of points quickly, not everybody is able to do so. Thus, I wanted to provide a list of ways to earn points without having …

Free flights and free hotel nights are always great to earn, but it’s even better when you can “work the system” to maximize your benefits. I hope that I’ve been able to give you at least a few useful tips over the years to make your travel a bit easier and cheaper. Today, I booked …

I use a number of different sources on any given day to decide what I am going to write about, including the news, reader requests (I need more of those, by the way.) and, of course, the internet. One of my favorite sites is actually CNN travel. They rarely have stories about miles, but they …